he's not too bright

Today’s blog is a tribute to our office coordinator. And I’m sure that you can tell by this title that “tribute” is not quite the right word. God bless him, he tries. Not very hard, but he tries. The boy is part-blind, I’m convinced, because he sits about 6 inches from the computer screen, and he neglects to see all the work sitting around his desk unless it’s been pointed out to him a few thousand times. While I really do think there’s something going on in that blond-haired, blue-eyed head, he doesn’t make that too obvious. He talks low and slow, making you think he has no idea what he’s saying and making it up as the words come out of his mouth. I really don’t know what the parents think when they call and get him as the official voice of NYLF.

Like any 19-year-old guy, he keeps the office in a messy state. I go in at least once a day and clean things up, but it’s messy again within half an hour. Papers everywhere, boxes strewn on the floor, packages everywhere (and students not notified!) and supplies dropped right where the deliverer put them. Our boss got on him this weekend because we had lots of parents come in and she wanted the office clean, but he didn’t do much about that.

And when I suggest things to him (like cleaning up the office), he refers to that as my “lectures.” In a non-patronizing way, I suggest to him, “We have a lot of students and parents coming into the office this weekend and we want them to think about us as a professional organization. We need to keep this place clean.” And I’m not lounging when I say this…I’m picking up papers, organizing boxes – and hoping he’ll follow my lead. When he turns on the TV, I try to suggest to him that our boss doesn’t like it and he will face her wrath if she comes into the office and finds it on. I am trying to help him out (because seriously, it does NOT look professional to have him lounging on the couch, watching HBO when people come in!) and he thinks I am just trying to lecture him! Like it’s a personal vendetta that I have, when our boss is the one who will get angry when she walks in.

While I understand that there are certain things that guys find funny that are not at all humorous to me, he takes this to a new level. No, I do NOT want to know exactly what went on when you spent 15 minutes in the bathroom! And, by the way, the other guys in the office think he’s just as gross about that as I do, so I know it’s not just a girl thing.

Our directors spent a good portion of our first week yelling at him because he’s not very good at listening to and following directions. And even though he has now been told how to do things for a month, he still does it his way. Which is not usually our way. I think we’ve given up getting things how we would like them, and we just make sure that he gives us the best that HE can do.

Nice, huh? I was talking a couple weeks ago in my blog about how I look for work to do if I don’t have any work in front of me. Our office coordinator, on the other hand, doesn’t take that initiative, and he regularly gets reamed because of it. Over the past weekend, when I was feeling particularly homicidal, I started making myself walk out of the room whenever he would walk in. As mean as that might sound, his ignorance, maturity level and mannerisms were seriously making me want to put my hands around his neck and squeeze tightly. We have bets around here to see who will kill him first – I have decided that I will not do the killing, but I definitely want to be around to watch.

As I am writing this, he has jammed the paper shredder YET again (and I think it overheated as well) because he will not put less that 8 sheets of paper into the shredder at a time. Yes, he has been reminded, but if the little picture on the top of the shredder doesn’t mean anything to him, I’m not sure our words are any better.

One more day! Of course, that includes a very hormonal night (we are expecting to break up a party on the 14th floor – booze and all) with everyone wanting to hook up before they go home…it reminds me of that teen movie "Can’t Hardly Wait." It’s their last night, so why shouldn’t they have a little fun, right? Uh huh. Not on my watch! :o)